Why Promotional Products Should be a Part of Your Marketing Strategy

Check out the logos on the pens, the clipboard, lanyards, and anatomically correct renderings. Chances are, they’re all promotional products from various pharmaceutical companies.

This is part of the success of these companies. They know how to successfully market to their client base using promotional products. After all, if your pen says Flexekeran, you’re probably going to be less likely to write a prescription for a competitor.

This is how promotional swag works. It keeps your name fresh in a clients mind, even when they aren’t actively thinking about it.

These types of products need to be a part of your marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at why.

Cost-Effective Marketing

The cool thing about promo products is that they offer pretty big bang for the buck.

Because you often order these products in bulk, your marketing money is providing you with a great deal more value per impression than say, a television ad or billboard.

Not to mention that promotional products are not single use (usually). Every time your clients use a pen or lanyard emblazoned with your logo, your brand recognition increases.

A good marketing campaign, emphasizes all areas, from content marketing to online presence. So make sure you are investing in promotional products.

Increased Perceived Value

People like swag. They like the little personal touches that promotional products represent.

They are also incredibly bad at estimating cost and value.

What these means, in essence, is that when it comes to promotional items, clients tend to be very easy to impress. An item that costs your company less than $5, for instance, may appear to cost much more.

These give the impression that your company invests in quality, that they produce quality, and that they value not only their own reputation but their clients.

It’s also important here to think about reputation. Lanyards USA has a great piece about this, and we encourage you to take a look. The major takeaway here, though, is that your promotional products become a huge piece of your reputation, both online and off.

Companies that use good-quality promotional products have a higher reputation with clients, which means a higher return on your initial investment.

Increased Brand Recognition

Look around your house. Chances are, you’ve borrowed a pen at a bank or Restaraunt and somehow ended up walking out with it.

This isn’t a problem, really. It’s all marketing strategy. Companies want you to do it. And if you’re smart, you should be wanting your customers to do it too.

Every time you use that pen (or another piece of promotional material), the brand is making another connection in your brain. It’s a less dystopic version of subliminal messaging, teaching your brain to associate usefulness with the brand in question.

By utilizing this same strategy in your marketing, you can get into the homes and offices of your clients, and really carve out a place for your brand. Best of all, this kind of advertising is so subtle, that they will see your company, trust it intrinsically, with hardly a wonder as to why.

Better than Any Business Card

How many business cards are floating around in your wallet, purse, or briefcase?

Better question: how many of them are you ever planning on looking at again?

Chances are, not many. They are more likely to simply be thrown away the next time you clear out your bag.

By contrast, the promotional material tends to stick around.

Better still, they tend to travel.

Consider the pen from earlier. You accidentally take the pen from the bank, with the bank’s name on it.

You use the pen awhile, then use it to sign the receipt for a takeaway pizza, inadvertently giving it to the delivery boy.

He has it for a bit, then hands it off to a customer, and so on and so forth. Suddenly, this pen (read: free piece of advertising) has been through at least three people, expanding its potential impressions and the banks potential business.

You can cash in on this same idea. Promotional products stay with your customers but are intensely portable and transferable. From totes to bookmarks, as your products travel, they reach more people, and you gain more clients.

Massive Customizability

No matter what line of work you are in, there is a promotional product that will reach your client base and help you speak to your target audience.

Pens are a standby, but what else is there? Well, it depends. A salon will have different marketing needs than a law office, so take that into account.

Notebooks are great if you work with creative types.

Lanyards are great if your client base works in offices or anywhere else that requires an ID badge.

Totes are useful all-around and send a message about high perceived value.

No matter who you are trying to reach, there is swag that can do it for you.

Ready to Use Promotional Products

Once you’re ready to take the dive into these products, your next steps are simple marketing.

Who is your target client base? What do they need? How are you going to get the promotional products into their hands?

Once you have a good handle on those answers, you’re ready to roll in the world of promotional product marketing strategies.